Monday, June 20, 2005

BARBARA PELMAN

One Stone, her first trade book, came out this year -- but poetically speaking she is no neophyte. At 50- something, she has been a full-time secondary school teacher for more than two decades, teaching and writing poetry all that time, patiently developing her craft in various writer's groups, submitting here and there, publishing occasionally in some of Canada's more established journals. At the new members' reading, she read this poem, which took my breath away -- and impressed me enough to buy her book. The book is about coming through a divorce after 20 years of marriage. In this poem, the final one in the collection, that painful process becomes analagous to the Isrealites wandering through the desert into the promised land. This association -- she said as much at the reading -- was a private one, but that level of meaning becomes clear in the context of the collection itself.

COMING THROUGH

400 years in a narrow land,our veins thick and stagnant;blood runs thin in a place of dust.

When we crossed the Red Sea,the waves rising like wallsand the land dry before us,we thought we were free.

But there was the desert --our minds could not fathomthe space, saw only sandand no water. Sand.No water. Our garments,of Egyptian cotton, fell from our shoulders,in strips and rags. The sun beatour backs, burned our hairwhite. Soon even our tearsdried in the desert air. There was rockand no water. We sat on stone,looking back at the green fields,the small huts of Mitzrayim.Why look forwardupon nothing?

Miriam led us from wellto well, cool water at the endof a long day. But there was no placeto build, only a momentof shade, sun reflectedon the palm frond, windscratching its spiky fingers:wind on the hot face, a cupof water.

Now is the timefor turning. Between us and Jerichois only a stretch of grass,tender green in the spring breeze,and a wall. In my hand,the ram's horn, a smooth boneof sound -- with my breathI can shake the walls, stir the stonesinto flight.

In front of me, the shadow of a wall,In my hand, a trumpet.

The writer of The Journey of the Magi could do no better.

Thematically, this poem is immense; technically it works so well on so many levels. I love, for instance, that "smooth bone of sound" amid all that aridity, and water/heat contrast is so natural one is somehow not immediately reminded of Eliot; it's been a while since I read a poem where the linebreaks were so effective. For instance, in the second stanza

In many poems this kind of "pregnant pause" or "leave the reader hanging" linebreaking seems a kind of cheap trick, as in say (I'm making up something here, but I'm sure many of you have seen similar)

I turned the lightoff. Was thinking aboutcalling you up as I went tobed.

but here, because of what the poem is about -- coming through such an inhospitable environment towards such an uncertain goal -- it serves its purpose well in slowing the reader down, in suggesting a number of uncertain possibilities before one, much as the narrator faces uncertain possibilities with each and every step as she/he makes her/his way through.

Her collection, at a 104 pages, is longer than most first books, but having only read part of it, I can see she takes us on quite a journey, along which she delivers a number of poems as strong as this one.

__________

I first saw Pelman on a panel about teaching poetry in the schools. It soon became clear that she was the most experienced teacher on the panel, and had come up with a number of inspiring formulas for teaching high schoolers to enjoy poetry ... a pretty daunting task at any time. People that age need anything to be strongly related to them personally to be at all relevant. One of her more striking assignments (maybe this idea is from the literature, but I have never heard it before) was for the student to choose from an exhaustive list a poet who was born on his or her birthday, write an interview with that poet, and then write a poem in the style of that poet. To get students away from the trite but universal impulse to write confessional rhyming poems, Pelman emphasized (this seemed to be her own formula, and teachers, as she said, always need them), the "Three P's of Poetry", ingrediants found in any good poem:

PassionPersonaPlay

Passion here is pretty self-explanatory. By Persona, she means a certain indirectness (persona of course meaning mask), i.e. an idea expressed by Billy Collins, that if you write about your father write about anything but your father... rather images & impressions either associated with him or somehow imbued by him. By Play, of course, she means play with language, and she suggested a number of interesting ways to impel the students toward that.

Anyway, Pelman struck me as a great teacher, giving the lie to that old GB Shaw walnut, "Those who can't do, teach..."

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About Me

Brian Campbell is a poet, singer-songwriter, editor, translator, photographer and teacher. His third full-length poetry collection, Shimmer Report, was published by Ekstasis Editions in 2015. He is also the author of Remnants of Autumn (Sky of Ink Press photobook, 2016), A Private Collection (Sky of Ink Press chapbook, 2014),Passenger Flight (Signature Editions, 2009), Guatemala and Other Poems (1994) and Undressing the Night (Editorial Lunes, Costa Rica, 2007), a translation of the selected poems of Francisco Santos. His poetry, reviews and essays have appeared in numerous reviews, including Saranac Review, New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, and The Rover. A finalist in the 2006 CBC Literary Award for Poetry, he is also co-founder/editor of Sky of Ink Press, which prints quality poetry chapbooks. His independent music CD, The Courtier’s Manuscript, was released in 2002.